


may these words be the first

by FebruarySong



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Established Relationship, Everybody Lives, F/F, i don't understand how to use the tags on ao3 and at this point i'm too afraid to ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-17 15:45:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13662135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FebruarySong/pseuds/FebruarySong
Summary: A surprise pregnancy is the last thing Jyn and Cassian expected, but the end of the world is the best time for new beginnings. A love story told in three sleepless nights.





	may these words be the first

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ohstardustgirl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohstardustgirl/gifts).



> This was written for the Rebelcaptain Secret Valentine gift exchange, and my recipient was ohstardustgirl with the prompt of starting a family. Realistically I think these two characters would have a LOT to work through about being parents, but I decided to keep things relatively light for the sake of a oneshot instead of the multichapter it probably deserves. I hope you enjoy this offering from my approximately ten thousand headcanons! :)
> 
> Many thanks to whindsor and lotrfansez on tumblr for workshopping this with me when I got stuck, and to care4music for her helpful copyedit. I've said it before and I'll say it again: it really does take a village. <3

_one._

“Jyn…” Cassian rolled over to see her better. He had felt her shifting restlessly throughout the night, each turn and twist pulling him from sleep. She had already reassured him twice, but it must have been half past three and she still hadn’t settled.

She turned too, so that they were cocooned face-to-face under the covers. Her hands shook as she rubbed her face.

“What is it?” he asked, shucking off the exhaustion that pulled at his bones. “Bad dreams?”

Her eyes glimmered in the darkness, but he couldn’t tell if they were luminous with tears or if it was just a trick of the low light.

“Do you think Poe is happy?” she asked.

“Poe Dameron?” The sleepy cobwebs lifted slowly from his brain. Jyn knew the boy’s parents better, serving often with Kes’ team of Pathfinders.

She answered with a nod, her gaze fixed on him but somehow far away.

“I don’t know, Jyn,” Cassian confessed. Poe wasn’t even two yet. He had parents that adored him, a bed to sleep in at night, and enough repurposed toys to spark his small imagination. What more could a toddler want? He was too young to know that the Empire could snatch all that away and worse.

His answer didn’t satisfy her. Jyn looked away, and now he was sure of the tears in her eyes.

“Hey, hey,” he hummed, concern jolting him fully awake. “What is it?”

She fiddled with a fold in the sheets, gathering her resolve. Then, quietly, “I’m pregnant.”

The revelation staggered him. Whispers of a second Death Star had been swirling for months. The Alliance was in a desperate race for time, and Luke Skywalker, their greatest hope, had been maimed and brought low by Vader. The fate of the galaxy looked very bleak. And yet…

She must have seen the disbelief flash across his face, because her fingertips brushed along his collarbone, a reassuring contact. “We don’t have to decide anything tonight. I’ve had longer to think about it than you have.”

“How long?” he asked. Something was building in his chest, something that ached and soared and made his heart throb ten times too large.

“The doctor confirmed it three weeks ago.” She curled into herself a little, brows knitting together as she realized his question was twofold. “I’m due in about six months.”

“Jyn–” he said, hesitating, terrified but desperate to know. “Do you want this? To keep it?”

“Yes,” she replied without the slightest pause, eyes blazing with certainty. Her jaw tightened. “Do you?”

A laugh bubbled up within him, incredulous but elated at his own response. “Yes,” he said, breathless. “ _Yes._ ”

Surprise and a smile bloomed across her face at the same time, and he scrunched forward to kiss the disbelief off her lips.

“You mean it?” she laughed breathlessly as she touched his jaw and searched his eyes. “Do you think we can be parents?”

“Yeah,” he replied, trailing his fingertips down her sternum to rest his hand, palm flat, on her belly. “The Empire has taken too much from us. We’re not going to give them this, too.”

“The baby isn’t moving yet, you know,” she said with a wry smile.

“ _El bebé_ ,” he echoed softly, savoring the word.

Jyn scooted closer and pushed him onto his back so that she could curl up against him. He went willingly, shifting his arm to make her more comfortable.

“I’m afraid,” she whispered as she slipped an arm over his waist, anchoring herself to him. “I haven’t wanted something this much since – well, since you.”

He pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. “I’m with you.”

There wasn’t anything else he could say. Neither of them could promise the other that the morning wouldn’t bring devastation; the best he could give her was that she wouldn’t face this alone. After a while, he sensed her body slackening into repose, the late hour finally coaxing her to sleep.

“I love you,” she murmured drowsily.

“I love you, too,” he replied, and stroked her hair as she drifted off.

 

_two._

Major Harter Kalonia had never been trained in midwifery. She had been a primary care physician for two years before defecting to the Alliance, at which point she learned how to be a trauma surgeon pretty damn quick. Aside from watching a holovid of a human birth once during med school, she knew about as much as anyone.

So when she was commed into the medbay at one in the morning for a labour and delivery, two hours after she got off a second shift to cover a skeleton crew, Kalonia would not have described herself as thrilled. Even less so when she learned that her patient was one Jyn Erso, spitting-mad as a cornered lothcat and ten centimetres dilated.

When she got the summons, Kalonia was in mission control listening to the comm chatter about the dual missions on and over Endor despite her deep fatigue. The fate of the entire galaxy rested on a small band of Pathfinders and the ships in space above – how could she not listen?

She wiped the exhaustion from her face and hurried down to the medbay. Gore and trauma no longer rattled her, but the sight of an obviously labouring woman, soaked in sweat and panting in the wake of a contraction, _did_ give her pause. To cover her unease, she hastened over to the sanistation to scrub in.

Of course, there had always been a chance she would be needed for the labour and delivery for one of the few pregnant woman on base. Kalonia had just hoped a more senior medic would be on hand, instead of lightyears away on support vessels, preparing to receive casualties. _If_ the mission succeeded.

“Why wasn’t the patient admitted earlier?” she asked the terrified shift-nurse who had commed her in the first place.

“She didn’t–” The nurse winced as Erso’s clenched-teeth growl turned into a wail during another contraction. “The droid said she was waiting for Captain Andor to get back. By the time she agreed to come in, she couldn’t walk. We had to bring her on a gurney.”

Ah yes, the hulking K2 unit that Kalonia passed on her way in. She didn’t have the spare brainpower to think about it any longer; she had gotten maybe two hours of sleep in the previous forty-eight with no prospect of any more until this baby was delivered.

“Please go find a maternity kit,” she asked the nurse, who gratefully bolted for the door.

Kalonia knew Erso a little, mostly by reputation. This was only the third time she’d been admitted as a patient to the medbay – once after Scarif, and again when she broke four ribs on an assignment. Kalonia was sure there had been other injuries, but Jyn tended to stitch up her own wounds when she could.

She bent to assess Erso’s progress, informing her matter-of-factly, “You picked quite a time to go into labour.”

“Didn’t– pick,” Erso bit out between pants for air.

“Let’s slow your breathing down, shall we?” Kalonia replied before demonstrating a more sedate pattern. Every ounce of Erso’s focus locked onto her, mimicking it. “That’s good, Jyn. Keep that up. I’m just going to check baby.”

Another contraction hit, and Erso ground out a cry that was as much frustration as pain.

“Jyn, don’t fight this,” Kalonia said in her patented calming voice. “It’s time to push.”

“ _No_ ,” she snarled, sweaty fringe falling across eyes that burned with determination. “Not– until– Cass–”

“Breathe.” Kalonia demonstrated the pattern again. “The operation on Endor only just started a few hours ago, Jyn. I doubt Captain Andor will be back in time, since your baby is practically crowning at this moment.”

“Kay– commed him.” Erso’s teeth were clenched so hard the words were barely intelligible. “Not on– Endor.”

That made sense; as an intelligence officer, he was probably on a clandestine operation to collect whatever last scraps of intel might have been helpful about the second Death Star. But they couldn’t wait for him when Erso’s contractions were less than two minutes apart.

Luckily, they didn’t have to. Footsteps pelted down the hall and a winded Cassian Andor appeared at the door, moving so fast he had to catch himself on the doorframe to avoid skidding right past.

“Jyn,” he wheezed as he half-collapsed against the bed and grasped her hand in his.

“You have impeccable timing, Captain Andor,” Kalonia said.

“The Death Star,” he managed between gulps of air. “They did it – it’s gone – and the Emperor with it.”

“Well then,” Kalonia said, her heart bursting, her voice steady. “Your child will be born into a free galaxy.”

Erso didn’t waste words as the next contraction hit. This time, she pushed.

Some time later, once mother and newborn were cleaned up, Kalonia breathed easy again. The delivery had gone without a hitch – and it had been _fast_ once Andor showed up. Thank the stars he did, and all that raw determination in Erso’s eyes to wait for him was rewarded.

Kalonia paused in the doorway on her way out. She had relinquished the new little family to the care of the shift-nurse and she could finally get some sleep, but she indulged herself for a moment, marveling at the tiny life she helped bring into the world – the new, _free_ world.

Jyn had wedged herself, babe in arms, into one side of the small hospital bed to make room for Cassian, who was stretched out on his side and watching his wife and son with dreamy eyes. He looked even more tired than Kalonia felt, but there was a peace on his face that she had never seen there in all the years she’d patched him up.

A strange tightness rose in Kalonia’s throat, and it was only when her eyes began to sting that she realized she was about to cry. It had been a long time since she had given herself the luxury of crying – but these were happy tears. These she could allow.

Wiping her eyes as she turned away, Kalonia headed at last for bed.

 

_three._

Jyn didn’t hear Cassian’s footsteps padding into the nursery over the sound of Phelipe’s wails as he clung to her, his tiny fist clutching the hairs at her nape, his tearful cheek sticky against her neck. Her son had probably only been crying for ten minutes, but to Jyn it felt like hours.

Monsters, she could fight. If anyone laid a finger on her son, she would tear out their heart and call a quick death merciful. But Phelipe cried because of a mysterious complaint only he knew, and Jyn couldn’t fight that.

“Hey,” Cassian’s voice came low under the hiccuping cry in Jyn’s ear. She turned to him, mostly just with her eyes to avoid jostling the little head under her chin. He was half dressed and all rumpled from interrupted sleep, but his tired eyes were clear and soft.

He took Phelipe from her arms, and she let him without protest. Phelipe stopped crying for a moment,  rearing clumsily back to appraise this newcomer, before dissolving into fresh howls.

“ _Qu_ _é_ _es, mi hijo?_ ” Cassian murmured.

“I think he’s teething,” Jyn said, rubbing a hand across her face. “Or he’s just gassy. I tried the drops that the doctor prescribed, but they didn’t help.”

Cassian sat down with a thoughtful frown and laid Phelipe in his lap, head on his knees. “Shara told me about this trick,” he said, his brows furrowing with careful concentration as he gathered Phelipe’s ankles in one hand and slowly pushed his fat little legs upward toward his abdomen.

Phelipe grunted a small, baby grunt and promptly broke the most tremendous wind that Jyn and Cassian had ever heard. They froze in place, their eyes meeting over their now-cooing son, before bursting into surprised laughter at the same time.

The laughter startled Phelipe, and his face pinched up in the threat of more tears. Cassian scooped him up and stood, curving his shoulders around him as he put a hand to guide Phelipe’s head over his heart. He began to pace the steady, lulling rhythm innate to parents, a smile still on his lips.

Phelipe’s eyes had already gone drowsy, his lashes blinking slower and slower with every step Cassian took. Jyn still smiled, too, as she watched her husband. There were many hallowed, secret things shared between them; things only she knew about him, or only she saw in the privacy of their own space. This facet of him – bare chested, his hair gloriously sleep-tousled, with a baby in his arms – was new, and Jyn added it to her collection to savor later.

“I was thinking,” she began before she quite knew how to finish the sentence.

“Hmm?” he prompted when she didn’t continue. Phelipe roused at the timbre of his voice, but Cassian stroked a slow circle into his back and he settled again.

“There are children,” she tried again. “Orphans, like us. All over the galaxy.”

A smile began to crinkle the corner’s of Cassian’s eyes as he caught her train of thought. “We could give some of them a home.”

“Yes,” she said, remembering when he had offered her exactly that, all those years ago in a hangar bay on Yavin 4.

“Let’s look into it in the morning,” Cassian said as he laid Phelipe back into the crib, brushing gentle fingertips over his downy fuzz of baby hair. Jyn stood to join him, and together they watched their son sleep.

A flash of otherworldliness stole over Jyn. In all her sleepless, bitter nights before meeting Cassian, she never imagined this. She had once been a roving spirit made of gristle and fury, but he had chosen her anyway. And she had chosen him – scars and hope and all.

She slipped her hand into his. Tomorrow, they would begin searching for other little souls to bring into their fledgling family. For now, the three of them in this small, dark room were enough.

**Author's Note:**

> -Harter Kalonia is the doctor who checked on Chewbacca’s arm in The Force Awakens. Offscreen, she patched up Finn’s lightsaber wound and years earlier advised Leia during her pregnancy. I’m probably playing fast and loose with the timeline, but a younger version of the character was too good to pass up.  
> -The title is taken from Light by Sleeping At Last: “May these words be the first to find your ears / The world is brighter than the sun now that you’re here.” It’s a beautiful song about becoming a parent which I thought neatly encompassed Jyn and Cassian’s feelings after Phelipe was born.  
> -I don't know why I named him Phelipe but you should google pictures of young Tyler Posey and die because that's how I headcanon him later in life :')


End file.
